


Apheresis

by cipherstranger



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, Suicidal Ideation, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-11-03 21:55:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10976097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cipherstranger/pseuds/cipherstranger
Summary: The last forgiveness you must earn is your own.(Ryoga, after everything)





	Apheresis

 

  
_“—Yuma?”_

_“Mm, Shark? What is it?”_

_“I just want to say sorry. For what happened. And for what I did.”_

_“Oh. Um— There’s nothing to be sorry for, Shark. Things turned out all right in the end, didn’t they?”_

_“… They did.” But—_

_“So, it’s really fine, isn’t it…”_

 

 

* * *

  
**3**

  
Afterwards, Vector makes amends.

The Barians set up home in Ryoga’s family’s old house, and for two days after they have settled in Vector shuts himself up in his room with the door locked and the curtains drawn, and only goes out to get food or use the bathroom. The third day is a Saturday and he knocks at Ryoga’s ajar room door at precisely nine in the morning, says “I’m going to see Yuma,” and his face is drawn and determined as he goes downstairs and out and crosses the street to catch the bus.

Ryoga follows him by motorbike the whole way to Yuma’s house, because he doesn’t trust what Vector wants to do. (Doesn't trust Vector.) He parks his bike around the corner from the footpath to Yuma's door, and watches as Vector walks up to Yuma’s house and stands at the door for a minute before he raises his hand to knock.

Yuma’s obaachan answers the door, and Vector says something Ryoga can’t hear and she nods and disappears back into the house. Half a minute later Yuma runs to the door, and when he sees Vector his face cycles through five different expressions. They exchange words Ryoga can't hear, and then Yuma throws his arms around Vector's shoulders and hugs him tightly. He’s saying something, and there are tears running down his face.

Something in Ryoga's chest goes cold and knotted and he has to look away.

He heads home on his own. Vector arrives back at the house fifteen minutes after him, with breakfast from the corner store in hand. Ryoga reads the paper at the kitchen table and ignores the food, waits for Vector to leave the room before tossing his share in the trash.

Rio, picking at her own portion, touches his shoulder and says “I think he’s sincere.”

Ryoga doesn't believe it. Someone like that isn't capable.

(Besides, if you are really sorry for something, you don't go to the person you wronged and grovel for forgiveness; you stay away and let them live in peace without you there.)

 

* * *

 

 

*****

But days turn into weeks and Vector doesn't break character, not once. He helps make food, does his share of chores, cleans and tidies the house and the grounds. Starts talking— first to Rio, then Alit and Gilag, then Durbe and Mizael. That May, he starts going to school again.

"It's not who you are underneath, it's what you do that defines you," Alit quips as they both watch Vector feed the rabbit Durbe is fostering. He deserves the punch to the shoulder Ryoga gives him for that, but it also makes Ryoga think.

 

* * *

 

**7**

 

Ryoga doesn't sleep.

At night he stares at the ceiling and turns over the cards in his deck one by one in his head, and wakes to knots in his chest and tears running down his face and a tremendous sense of _something is wrong here_ although he cannot pinpoint exactly what that is. He tastes blood, knows it has to be his own.

He thinks: it should have been him who died, that day on the sun-soaked plains. Then he thinks, _no_. Wishing you are dead is the irresponsible way.

3:36 a.m. Ryoga rolls over onto his other side and tries very hard to rest.

 

* * *

 

*****

 

 _Shark were going to the cardshop_  
_Shark are you coming to the park with us today?_  
_Shark?_  
_Shark, we're having a class outing and is it okay if_

Ryoga wants to know what the texts say (he wants to listen to everything Yuma has to say, forever and ever and ever) and he leaves them all unread instead.

 

* * *

 

 

**15**

 

5:32pm on a cool Saturday night Tenjo Kaito knocks on the front door and asks to see Mizael, who comes downstairs in a long-sleeved t-shirt and jeans with his hair pulled back. The clothes are Rio's, probably. He tells Ryoga what time to expect him back, and then he follows Kaito outside and lets the door click shut behind him.

Ryoga volunteers to stay up, tells Rio and Alit to go to bed.

A little past midnight the glare of headlights comes through the window, and Ryoga goes to the window and looks through the blinds. In the driveway, the Arclights' family car. Ryoga sees Kaito walk around the car to Mizael's side; they exchange words and then Kaito pulls Mizael close, presses Mizael's head into his shoulder.

Ryoga sits back down on the couch, and that is where Mizael finds him when he turns the key in the door and pushes it open. "Thank you for waiting, Nasch."

Ryoga nods. He wants to say something _—_ anything _—_ an acknowledgement, an apology, or an inquiry about Mizael’s well-being. But Mizael is already heading upstairs, mismatched socks making no noise on the wood paneling, and Ryoga turns out the light in the living room and follows him.

 

* * *

 

*****

 

 _It’s really okay._ Yuma’s words sit in his mind like a dead elephant in the corner of the room.

Ryoga doesn't give two fucks about Vector and what the bastard thinks or does, he really doesn't, but he himself cannot walk up to Tsukumo Yuma and smile like nothing is wrong.

Pity.  
He'd rather die.

 

* * *

  
  
**24**

 

Ryoga turns the corner to the kitchen and finds Yuma and Mizael and Gilag already there; an opened box of cereal on the kitchen table, and Yuma is talking to Vector about a TV show. Vector glances at the door, says "Hello, Ryoga," and turns back to his conversation and the pan he is holding over the stove.  
  
There is no hostility in it.

Ryoga clenches his fist behind his back until his nails dig crescents into his hand. Vector can stand in the kitchen _—_   _his_ kitchen _—_  and make food like nothing ever happened, but it is _not_ all right.

The least you can do is _never ever forget_.

But _—_

The others are fine. Mizael and Gilag are fine, and Yuma is fine, and Ryoga will not be the one to break the uncertain equilibrium that has settled over them all. So he turns and leaves before he does something he will regret.

 

* * *

 

*****

  
At six in the evening, the sunset over Heartland River is red. The schoolchildren have all gone home; the footpath by the river is empty, the air heavy with the sound of traffic in the distance and the calling of birds. Another sunset, lifetimes ago, was also the color of blood.

Ryoga turns the key in his own front door and walks in. The lights in the hall are all on, and it is too loud, too bright. The television is turned to the news channel, and on the couch Rio is talking to Durbe about something but at the sound of his approach they both fall silent and turn to face him. Their eyes on him are hesitant, expecting.

He turns without a word and goes upstairs.

 

* * *

 

**45**

 

Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, Gilag makes dinner, and Vector helps.

Ryoga is on his phone in the living room when the room fills with the acrid scent of something burning; he hears Vector yelp, and then the click of the burners switching off and the sound of the venting fan turned up high.

"Well," Alit says quietly, from the other couch.

From the kitchen come the sounds of Vector scrubbing out the pan, and then he says something to Gilag that Ryoga can’t hear, and crosses the living room and goes out the front door without talking to any of them. He returns a half-hour later with takeout, and is gone by the time Ryoga goes to the table. After another five minutes Rio takes his share of the food and her own and heads upstairs.

Ryoga gets halfway through his bowl of soup noodles and empties the rest into the trash.

 

* * *

 

*****

 

Vector has the same shadows under his eyes that Ryoga does, but he also smiles, and sits by Yuma at lunch and laughs with everyone. If one were to approach a student in Yuma's class and ask about him, they might say: "Rei? Oh, Shingetsu. He's a bit silly sometimes, but his heart's in the right place."

At home Vector is quieter, more subdued. He makes every effort to keep in the common areas instead of upstairs in his room, but occasionally he will still shut himself in his room for days on end until Rio knocks on his door to call him downstairs. (He has never said no to her.)

Sometimes in the night Ryoga wakes to the sound of Vector sobbing, stifled through the wallboards, clearly trying not to make noise and clearly failing. If Yuma were here, he would knock on Vector's door with hot chocolate or another blanket or something. If Ryoga were any better a person, he would do the same.

Instead Ryoga puts his pillow over his head to block out the noise and goes back to not sleeping.

 

* * *

 

**53**

 

At the start of term Gilag joined the art club at school at Chitaro’s behest, and now he draws them each a portrait ‘to practice still life’. Ryoga fidgets in the chair as Gilag moves pencil over paper, and when he finally spins the easel around Ryoga observes he rigid posture, the lines on his forehead, the averted eyes. “It’s a good likeness,” he says.

Gilag slides the drawing sheet from under the clips and hands it to him. “You doing okay, boss?”

“—Yeah, it’s fine,” Ryoga replies.

 

* * *

 

*****

 

The mass of scar tissue over Ryoga's right shoulder slows his right hook, so he favors his left. The people he used to get into fights with on a regular basis knew and exploited that, and it sickened him beyond belief that there was _nothing_ he could do about it.

He was stupid to get hurt like that for cards. But he won't make the same mistake twice.

 

* * *

 

**61**

 

Yuma stops by the house to see Vector, and after dinner goes to say hello to everyone else. Knocks on Ryoga’s door and asks permission to come in— Ryoga never answers further than a terse ‘yes’— and then pushes it open and says hello.

Ryoga doesn’t offer Yuma a seat, and Yuma stands awkwardly by the wall near the door as he asks how Ryoga is. Talks to Ryoga softly, hesitantly, and that only makes Ryoga angrier (he will _not_ be handled like a breakable thing) and Ryoga can't tell what unnerves him so much about the fact that Yuma really came to see Vector, not him _—_

( _—_  no, it's not that _—_ )

 _—_ it's that Vector can step up to the plate (and be forgiven, and forgive himself for all that happened; the thought is sickening) and he cannot.

Yuma has fled the room; Ryoga lets the thought sit against the wall where Yuma had stood, until the sun goes down and he can no longer see the crease where wall meets floor. Then he throws on jacket and shoes and heads out to his old gang’s hideout.

The gambling den is run by different people now, people Ryoga doesn’t know and who don’t know him. It is better this way. Ryoga puts his name down for the night’s tournament and pulls out his cards. He does not need luck on his side, but the way eyes glitter around him, there are people here who do.

Rikuo said once: _Everyone is just trying to find a way to live._

(More useful than looking for the quickest way to die.)

It is comfortable here, in a way it no longer is back home, and he duels until he isn't thinking about anything at all.

 

* * *

 

*****

 

Ryoga goes downstairs to get water and finds Yuma and Vector standing in the middle of his kitchen. Vector has his face buried in the crook of Yuma's neck, his shoulders heaving with sobs. Yuma has his arms around Vector's shoulders, murmuring something Ryoga can't hear. On the table behind them, the day's newspaper is open to the crossword.

It suddenly seems wrong to be here, so Ryoga turns around and heads back upstairs.

 

* * *

 

**87**

 

Rio knocks on his half-open door. "Ryoga?"

"Mm? Don't you have Vector to bother?"

"He's downstairs playing rummy," Rio replies. "You aren't."

"Eh, I don't feel like it." Ryoga flops backwards onto his bed, raises a hand to shield his eyes from the ceiling light. "Next time."

"Yuma’s here. He asked where you are. You're not gonna go say hi?"

"Mm, guess not." He looks up at the ceiling, at the slowly turning fan, anywhere but at her.

" _—_ Don't be like this, Ryoga," she says. There's that catch in her voice that means she's about to cry.

Rio knows him better than anyone, and still can find it in herself to love him. He wonders if it will always be this way, because she will suffer.

"Rio," he says. "You've had a hard time."

"Of what?"

"Being with me."

"Don't say that." She walks to his bed and sits down beside him. "We're family," she says, and touches his shoulder. "And even if I got to choose, Ryoga, I'd still want to be with you."

He forces a smile. He really needs to do better. "Thanks, Rio."

She squeezes his shoulder again, then gets up to leave. "Yuma's downstairs. Come say hi. If you feel like it."

He thinks about it for longer than necessary, and then doesn’t.

 

* * *

 

*****

 

The bags under Durbe's eyes begin to lift; he begins to talk more, smile more, loses the scared expression he gets every time someone calls his name. He occupies himself every way he can: schoolwork, tutoring, history club, volunteering at the animal shelter. Cats like him more than he likes them, and more than once he comes back with clothes dusted with fur and has to hide in his room because otherwise Mizael doesn't stop sneezing for the rest of the evening.

Sometimes Durbe will still reach for Ryoga, a touch on the back or the upper arm, and then draw back quickly like he's been burned. They don’t go back to the way they were friends before; not after dying twice over, not now that they each have their own lives to go on living. And Ryoga is grateful for that, because Durbe has suffered enough for his sake.

Ryoga asks in passing how he is, and he doesn't hesitate before he says, "Fine."

That evening they are doing dishes when Alit tells an off-color joke and Durbe bursts out laughing, and Ryoga knows he will be all right after all.

 

* * *

  
**94**

 

Thomas Arclight returns to Heartland during a break between tournaments, and invites Ryoga and Rio out to catch up over afternoon coffee.

Michael is doing well in school, and Chris has landed a position in one of Heartland’s primary schools teaching science. Thomas himself has stories to tell: about duelists he meets, the pro scene metagame, connecting flights, the exhaustion of traveling for tournaments.

He flirts gently with Rio and she responds in kind. Ryoga isn't even angry. Thomas is much better (much better off) like this: in his element, with the success and validation he needs to keep him happy.

Later Rio excuses herself to the washroom, and Thomas meets Ryoga's eyes across the table and asks, very directly, "Ryoga, are you doing okay?"

Ryoga makes a noncommittal noise. “IV, can I tell you something?”

“Yeah?”

"Sorry. About the whole, killing you thing."

Thomas regards him a moment, his expression going serious, then nods. "It's fine, Ryoga. I'm fine now, aren't I?"

Ryoga doesn't say anything.

Thomas steeples his fingers. “You know, a couple days after I—woke up— I went to find Rio and say sorry.”

“And?”

“She kicked my ass in a duel and then kicked my ass for real.”

Ryoga’s face twitches. “You deserved it.”

Thomas laughs. “I did. But what I mean is—you need to let it go, or it’ll eat you.”

“So we’re even, now,” Rio says from behind him, and Thomas laughs, and the subject is dropped entirely.

 

* * *

 

*****

 

Three times a week, Alit gets up at four-thirty in the morning to be at school by five for archery practice. The sound of the bathroom tap running jerks Ryoga into a half-asleep stupor, and he watches the minute hand on his bedside clock tick forward seven minutes until his footsteps disappear down the stairs and the front door clicks shut behind him. It is another one and a half minutes to the bus stop one street over, then five stops and twelve minutes to school.

Ryoga turns over, sheets rumpling uncomfortably beneath him, and stares out of the blinds at the gradually lightening sky until it is time to get up himself.

 

* * *

  
**97**

 

Yuma chases Ryoga down one cloudy afternoon after school, and it has been so long since they last spoke that Ryoga is caught off guard.

"... How the hell did you find me?"

"I saw you went this way, and then I asked who had seen a red motorbike. It wasn't hard."

"Fine. What do you want?"

"Shark, are you avoiding me?”

 _Yes._ “No.”

Yuma bites his lip. “Is it about what happened? With Astral and everything?”

Ryoga doesn’t say anything.

“Shark, please, listen to me.” Yuma looks like he's about to cry, and it makes Ryoga’s heart clench. “Those things happened. That's never going to be undone. But we lived. We lived, and it's past now, and we still have our whole lives ahead of us."

Ryoga thinks: no, he doesn't. His past is buried. The present _—_ is what it is. He has no future.

But it’s fine for Yuma to think that way if it makes him feel better. So Ryoga tries to rearrange his face into a better expression.

"Is it _—_ is it alright if I hug you, Shark?"

Ryoga nods.

He is not prepared for the warmth of Yuma’s body, Yuma’s face against his shoulder, nor the crushing sensation in his chest that has nothing to do with the pressure of Yuma's hug. Yuma, who has stuck by Ryoga's side no matter what wrong he did or what mistakes he made; Yuma, who has seen all the wrong he has done, and who is promising to stay by him still _—_

In every tomorrow Ryoga has only ever seen darkness, but Yuma has strength and light enough for them both. When Yuma is with him, Ryoga can believe that things will be all right.

...

Yuma must have forgiven Vector exactly like this.

Ryoga's chest goes cold, bile rises in his throat so fast he chokes. He shoves Yuma away, and goes outside and is sick in the bushes until his knees buckle and his stomach knots.

 

* * *

  
*****

 

Through the plains on the inland side of the United Lands, there ran a river. When the great war happened, it flowed first red with the blood from opened wounds, and later, gray from the bloat and decay of the corpses it carried to the ocean. Birds and wild dogs fed on the decomposing flesh, and the sludge ran through the agricultural lands. Six months into the plague outbreak Nasch the king-no-longer had stood on the sun-soaked plains and looked over the river, and vowed that the last life it took would be his own.

There are places in the sea that sunlight does not reach. The majority of nutrients for life there come from things that die on the surface and sink.

There are places in a soul that mercy does not reach. At a certain lack of light, at a certain depth, the taste and weight of water is indistinguishable from blood.

 

* * *

  
**99**

 

“Ryoga.”

It’s Vector, posture rigid and face set in a grim expression. Ryoga feels his face twist. _Don’t call me that_. “What do you want?”

“—I want to apologize. I know nothing I say or do will change anything, but I need to anyway.”

Ryoga thinks about Rio saying _we’re family_ , Yuma saying “we still have our whole lives ahead of us”. Durbe curled up in Mizael’s lap on the couch, watching re-runs of old TV shows at 3 a.m.. Yuma comforting Vector in the kitchen, Yuma saying _It’s really okay—_

(The sunset was red, that day.)

Something clenches in Ryoga’s chest. “Then I don’t accept it.”

_Sorry, Yuma. My heart isn’t like yours._

Vector nods. “I understand,” he says, and turns to walk away.

“Do you really.”

Vector stops dead and whirls around, and his face is twisted in familiar contempt. But then the expression softens into something completely unrecognizable. “Yes, Nasch. I do. I hope one day you will too.”

He turns and walks away.

 

* * *

 

**&.**

 

At six in the evening, the sunset over the river is red. He stands alone by the edge of the running water and watches the distortion of his reflection in the surface. The weight of a weapon hangs asymmetric from one arm, and wind curls round his shoulders and through his hair.

In that life, Nasch walked into the rushing current, and let dark water fold over his face like regret.

In this one, Ryoga turns around, and goes home.

 

 

 

 


End file.
